He knew there was just one chance to save the Presidency to the Federalist party.  Did he employ the magic of his pen to recreate the popularity of John Adams, it was more than possible that thousands would gladly permit the leader they had followed for years to persuade them they had judged too hastily the man of whom they had expected too much.  But by this time there was one man Hamilton hated more implacably than Jefferson, and that was John Adams.  Besides the thorough disapproval of the Administration of Adams, which, as a statesman, he shared with all the eminent Federals in the country, his personal counts with this enemy piled to heaven.  Adams had severed the party he had created, endeavoured to humiliate him before the country, refused, after Washington’s death, to elevate him to his rightful position as General-in-chief of the army he had organized, alienated from him one of the best of his friends, and primarily was answerable for the crushing defeat of yesterday.  With one of the Pinckneys at the helm, Hamilton could have defied Jefferson and kept the Democrats out of power; but the man next in eminence to himself in his own party had given his supremacy its death-blow, and it is little wonder if his depths resembled boiling pitch, if the heights of his character had disappeared from his vision.  He was, above all things, intensely human, with all good and all evil in him; and although he conquered himself at no very remote period, he felt, at the present moment, like Lucifer whirling through space.

Troup, now a retired judge of the U.S.  District Court of New York, and a man of some fortune, ready as of old to be Hamilton’s faithful lieutenant, entered and looked with sympathy and more apprehension at his Chief.

“I’ve not come to bemoan this bad business,” he said, sitting down at a desk and taking up his pen.  “What next?  It looks hopeless, but of course you’ll no more cease from effort than one of your Scotch ancestors would have laid down his arms if a rival chieftain had appeared on the warpath with the world at his back.  Is it Adams and C.C.P. to the death?”

“It is Pinckney; Adams only in so far as he is useful.  He still has his following in the New England States.  The leaders in those States, first and second, must be persuaded to work unanimously for Adams and Pinckney, with the distinct understanding that in other States votes for Adams will be thrown away.  This, after I have persuaded them of Adams’s absolute unfitness for office.  If we carry and it comes to a tie, there is no doubt to whom the House will give the election.”

Troup whistled.  “This is politics!” he said.  “I never believed you’d go down to your neck.  I wish you’d throw the whole thing over, and retire to private life.”

“I shall retire soon enough,” said Hamilton, grimly.  “But Adams will go first.”